


And I Shot Him With Both Barrels

by Byacolate



Category: Battleborn (Video Game)
Genre: Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 06:35:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6970135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A poet, an engineer, and a Whiskey walk into a bar...</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I Shot Him With Both Barrels

“So... engineering?”

 

Whiskey raps the side of Oscar’s head with his knuckles before his hand falls to the bed.

 

“Don’t get her started with all that science shit,” he grunts.

 

Phoebe sits up, hair askance. “Oh, please do!” She drapes herself over Oscar Mike’s chest, despite his gasp for air, and regards him excitedly. “Don’t you want to know all the complexities of robotics? The science behind robotic technology is perhaps the most remarkable -”

 

She gasps when a pillow knocks her off balance, and goes sprawling over Oscar Mike - only marginally less artful than before. “Well!”

 

“It’s too damn early for technobabble,” Whiskey tells her when she pops up, indignant. “And it‘s never the right time to pretend that shit is pillow talk. Get some sleep.”

 

“Or I could nurture his budding scientific mind,” Phoebe hums, turning her attention back to Oscar Mike. She draws her fingers down his jaw. He swallows, trying to find some good words, real impressive ones while his body keeps itself attuned to Phoebe on top of him and Whiskey’s warning growl. Whiskey solves one problem by pulling her from Oscar Mike with a little squeal and tucking her under his arm.

 

“Sleep,” he says.

 

Phoebe, rolled onto her side and facing Oscar Mike, winks. Despite Whiskey‘s death grip and her tussled hair and the dark bruises blossoming all down her long neck, she still has more composure than Oscar Mike.

 

“It’s never too early for technobabble,” she whispers conspiratorially.

 

Oscar Mike is inclined to believe her, even when Whiskey takes his pillow and presses it over her face.

 

* * *

 

“For you!”

 

Whiskey glances up from the pot simmering on the stove. Phoebe wields a bouquet at him like a sword. The industrial-grade gloves on her hands are not an uncommon sight - her face, puffy and red, really is.

 

“Uhh.”

 

“Well, for me. For us! But I’m terribly allergic, you see - as I’ve discovered just today. So you’ll keep them.”

 

“Huh.” Whiskey takes the bouquet from her and sets it on the kitchen counter, a safe distance away. “That what happened to your face?”

 

“One does not remark upon a lady’s deformations, however tragic.”

 

“Yeah, tragic is definitely the word I’d use for -”

 

“One does _not.”_

 

Whiskey bares his teeth in a rough approximation of a grin. “A gift, huh? From the kid?”

 

“How very perceptive of you!”

 

“You can’t really pull off haughty when your face is twice its usual size.”

 

“Wretched thing! I most certainly can!”

 

She pulls off her gloves and tosses them on the counter beside the flowers, pulsating with iridescent blue light. Whiskey juts his chin out in the direction of the cabinets. “Grab a carafe or something. We’ll get these in water.”

 

Though somewhat sullenly, Phoebe obeys.

 

“These are hideous,” she insists, standing on the tips of her toes to rifle through the cabinets.

 

“You’re on a military battleship. What were you expecting?”

 

“Not taste,” she admits, pulling out a sturdy aluminum pitcher. “I suppose this will do.” She fills it with as much purified, rationed water as they can afford to use frivolously and hands it to Whiskey, who obligingly arranges the flowers within.

 

The stew is nearly done, so he turns the heat down to a simmer. Phoebe pokes experimentally at her face as she watches.  


 

“Why didn’t he bring them to you himself, I wonder?” she muses.  


 

“I’m an intimidating guy.”

 

Phoebe titters. “Hardly!”

 

“What.” He gestures down at himself and the mess of powder pink frills and lace tied around his waist. "Is it the apron?”

 

The posh little giggles are a little less for show, a little less graceful now. He carefully lifts an eyebrow and smooths his hand over the wide patch sewn into the chest - HOT STUFF stitched in with pink sequins. ”This was a gift from Reyna. I’m still a scary-looking fuck.”

 

“You aren’t,” she laughs, and groans, holding her swollen cheeks. Either her eyes are watering, or it’s a trick of the light. “Even without the apron.”

 

“Go to the med bay,” he tells her, giving his hands a thorough wash in the sink before he steps up close, pressing the back of his hand to a hot cheek. “And tell the kid to try chocolates next time.”

 

“Or I’ll just tell him to give his flowers directly to you instead,” she sighs, patting his forearm. “You like them.”

 

“What’s not to like?”

 

She smiles, and as jacked up as her face is, it’s still a radiant look on her.

 

When she leaves, Whiskey knows it won’t be long before Shayne and Orendi come to commandeer unreasonable portions for themselves. Knowing Orendi, she might try to eat the weird glowing flowers, too. He puts them up on top of the industrial freezer... just in case.

 

* * *

 

She has a very fetching constellation of moles on her right shoulder. To date, eighty percent of her paramours have made it their business to lavish them with attention.

 

Oscar Mike is no exception, and neither for that matter is Whiskey Foxtrot. Where the former tends toward nuzzles with his thin lips and the tip of his nose, the latter likes to bite. She’s quite partial to both - neither in particular more than the other.

 

Of all aforementioned paramours, however, Phoebe suspects she might have favorites.

 

Oscar Mike presses his forehead to her shoulder, and she can feel his fingers move in peculiar patterns with a stunted lack of rhythm over her back. It isn’t the first time he’s written poetry on her skin, and if she has her way, it won’t be the last.

 

She can’t make it out even if she focuses, so she figures he must be writing in the language of his origin.

 

“Sappy,” Whiskey grumbles on his other side, and Phoebe quietly applauds herself for an accurate hypothesis.

 

That is to say, she does it aloud, of course. But her tone is appropriately hushed for the hour.

 

“You’re writing in your glyphs! I suspected as much. You will translate it for me, won’t you?”

 

“It’s private!” Oscar insists, slips out of habit. His hand stills. No no no, that just won’t do.

 

“You’ve written it on _my_ back!”

 

He takes his hand away and she rolls over to face him, wiggling closer until he has no choice but to settle an arm around her. “I love your poetry,” she sighs, throwing an arm over him. It flops onto Whiskey’s chest on the other side. She pats at his scars. “Tell me the one about the spiders again!”

 

“You’ve heard that one a thousand times,” Whiskey says. “You know it by heart.”

 

“I do,” she agrees with a triumphant snuggle against Oscar’s chest. “But it sounds best when he recites it. From the lips of the artist himself.”

 

“I like the one about grenades better.”

 

“Only because he wrote it about you! It was good though, darling, don’t misunderstand me.” She looks up. In the faint glow of Whiskey’s reading lamp, she can see Oscar Mike's face is tinged a deep violet. “The soul of an artist is a rare and beautiful thing now.”

 

“Uhh. Yep.”

 

“There’s that artistic soul shining through.”

 

Phoebe grins and tucks her face back against his chest. She sighs deeply. “It’s a good soul,” she says, patting Whiskey‘s bosom. “Better when it tells me the poetry it’s been writing on me.”

 

Oscar Mike is quiet for a long time, stiff as a board, his legs shifting restlessly against hers.

 

“This one’s about swords,” he says finally, cautiously. Phoebe grins.

 

“Oh, I do _love_ swords. Recite it for me?”

 

When he finally speaks poetry, it’s stilted, embarrassed, unpolished, but Phoebe sighs again once he's all through. “That was lovely! Whiskey, wasn’t it lovely? Say it again!”

 

It’s only the third time she asks that Whiskey hits them both over the head with a pillow. Because he likes it, of course. And why wouldn’t he, she thinks to herself. What’s not to like?  


**Author's Note:**

> Title from Thin Lizzy's "Whiskey in the Jar"
> 
> Inquire about fic requests [here!](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/ask)  
> If you are so inclined, feel free to follow [my Tumblr](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/).


End file.
